Earlier this week, Manchester United confirmed the signing of Carlos Baleba from Brighton for an initial £65 million, with a further £5 million available in add-ons.

The Cameroonian midfielder becomes the third central midfielder United have added this summer, following the arrivals of Youri Tielemans from Aston Villa and Andrey Santos from Chelsea.

Last season, Kobbie Mainoo and Casemiro established themselves as a formidable partnership in midfield. However, with Casemiro now having departed for Inter Miami and United facing the prospect of playing two or three matches a week throughout the upcoming campaign, further reinforcements were essential.

Unlike Tielemans and Santos, Baleba offers a physical presence as a powerful, athletic defensive midfielder who thrives in duels. His pace, strength and defensive ability should provide excellent balance to Carrick’s midfield options.

Former United midfielder Owen Hargreaves has been speaking about the signing of Baleba in recent days and explained why he thinks the ex-Brighton man is a perfect addition to the squad.

The Champions League winner pointed out how Baleba offers different qualities to the existing talent within United's midfield ranks, which could be a major positive when looking to form a strong midfield pairing.

"Baleba is a good, young and athletic player, and he is very different to Kobbie, Tielemans and Santos," Hargreaves told TNT Sports.

"Everything in football is about styles and partnerships. If you look at Arsenal, they have Gabriel and [William] Saliba at the back. Back in the day, [Michael] Carrick had an amazing partnership with [Paul] Scholes in the midfield.

"The reason why we struggled with England is because we never really developed any partnerships. We had all of these brilliant players, but we never made partnerships together, so it’s essential to have those connections in the centre-back positions and in midfield too.

"I think that Baleba can give the team something different because he’s a different physical profile, he’s left-footed and, depending on what Carrick needs to do in a game, he can mix and match his players.

"He’s different to the current crop of players and that’s why I think he’ll be a really good fit."

While, on the surface, it is somewhat strange comparing Arsenal's centre-back pairing to United's potential midfield, Hargreaves' point makes complete sense.

The Reds have not lacked ability in the midfield over the years but instead they have not had the right partnerships and that has limited United.

Saliba and Gabriel are top players in their own right but make each other better within their partnership and Hargreaves clearly believes that Baleba can help do the same to his partner in United's midfield.

The Cameroonian will likely start most of United's games when he's fit due to his playstyle. It will be interesting to see who partners him most regularly as the options all have quality.